According to prisonpolicy.org, Wisconsin releases roughly 168,553 men and 45,132 women from its prisons and jails each year. Re-entering society after incarceration often includes a variety of challenges, including finding housing, employment and managing mental and physical health. Students in MSOE’s Honors Program set out to aid individuals with their re-entry into society by creating Home to Stay, a website designed to serve as a centralized hub for re-entry resources, services and events.

This project started with five Honors Program students in the 2018-19 academic year and since then, four teams totaling 15 students have worked on the project. As Dr. Michael Carriere, professor and director of the Honors Program, was teaching students about urban centers throughout the United States, he recognized a need to address the realities of mass incarceration. 

Carriere and Honors students began taking “field trips” to the Community Reintegration Center, formerly the Milwaukee House of Correction, to meet with currently incarcerated individuals to find out what they would want included on a resource website. From there, student groups collaborated to first build the wireframe for the site, then build out the infrastructure for the site. Other groups collected the data to populate the platform. Students also worked on a phone app for the platform, which is schedule to go live in February 2025.

“The history of mass incarceration in America is a tragic story,” said Carriere. “But it is also a history full of individuals and organizations trying to challenge the most destructive tendencies of such a system. I want to empower my students to find ways to address these troubling histories. The Home to Stay project allows my students to contribute to a tool that allows people to have a second chance. We all make mistakes. I hope my students understand the importance of compassion and empathy as they make their way into young adulthood.”

The Home to Stay website (hometostaywi.org) went live in late 2024 and offers resources for education, employment, financial, healthcare, food, housing, legal, support groups, transportation and more.

Working on projects like these empower students to exhibit the MSOE Mindset, which identifies graduates as leaders of character, responsible professionals, passionate learners and value creators. Through the Home to Stay project, students truly demonstrated being self-aware, community builders and ethical while exhibiting curiosity, making connections and creating value.

Carriere’s work with the prison continues beyond the walls of MSOE. He is currently teaching a course through the McNeely Prison Education Consortium (MPEC), which provides access to higher education for students directly impacted by the criminal legal system through a collaborative effort involving universities, colleges, correctional facilities, re-entry programs and community organizations across Southeastern Wisconsin.

Carriere is teaching MSOE’s first MPEC offering, “Urban Ecology: A History,” at Racine Correctional Institution during the Spring Semester. The course is taught in person and provides the incarcerated individuals with the opportunity to take college courses and earn college credit while in prison.

“95 percent of people will ultimately get out of prison—doesn’t it make sense to provide such individuals with the skills needed to successfully re-enter society? At the same time, those who are incarcerated are capable of great ideas,” said Carriere.

MPEC supports higher education institutions in effectively serving these students, contributing to the development of stronger, safer, and more economically vibrant communities throughout the region. MPEC is led by Marquette University in collaboration with colleges and universities throughout Southeastern Wisconsin, including Alverno College, Mount Mary University, MSOE, and UW-Madison. More information can be found on the MPEC website.